Young Birmingham-Southern student was trailblazer for civil rights (opinion from Charles C. Krulak)

Birmingham-Southern College president Gen. Charles "Chuck" C. Krulak, former member of the Joints Chiefs of Staff. (Birmingham News File Photo)

By Charles C. Krulak

As our community commemorates the 50th anniversary of 1963 – that pivotal year for Birmingham and for the country as a whole – many of us have a question to ask ourselves:

What would I have done?

It’s not an easy question to answer. Most of us believe that we would have done the right thing. That we would have stood up for justice and equality. That, in the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

In 1963, that choice wasn’t easy. Standing up, marching in the streets, even befriending someone of another race brought risks. For some, the consequences included jail, beatings, even death. Others faced the loss of their livelihood, their friends, and their dreams.

Take Martha “Marti” Turnipseed, a young Birmingham-Southern student who was brave enough to follow her conscience and stand up as part of the civil rights movement.

In the early 1960s, Marti was a pretty typical white teenager. A native of Greensboro, Ala., and the daughter of a Methodist minister, she spent her spent her first year at BSC going on dates, pledging a sorority, out on football weekends, and trying to stay on top of her coursework. She wasn’t ready to question the culture of white Birmingham; she even wrote home in a letter to her family that she opted to stand on a city bus in 1962 rather than sit down in an empty seat beside a black woman – because she worried what her friends would think.

Marti Turnipseed's yearbook photo. (Courtesy BSC)

But as she began to mature and take religion and philosophy courses at BSC, Marti started to question the status quo, turning from dresses and dances to her deeper spiritual values. She wondered how the people around her could remain indifferent to the brutal suppression in Birmingham’s streets.

On April 23, 1963, Marti and two of her friends attended a mass meeting led by Dr. King at Ensley’s First Baptist Church. Fred Shuttlesworth introduced the young Birmingham-Southern students to the crowd, putting his arm around them and asking them to speak to the packed church. Afterward, Marti volunteered to participate in a sit-in at the segregated lunch counter at Woolworth’s downtown store scheduled for the next day, April 24. She was the first white student in Birmingham to do so, joining seven black students who took an even greater risk than she did. Those students were arrested, while Marti was sent back to the campus that even then was called “the Hilltop.”

When she arrived, school officials – bowing to pressure from Police Commissioner Bull Connor – told Marti she would have to leave school immediately. The official line was that she withdrew voluntarily. But in reality, she was forced to go because she refused to promise not to break the segregation laws again. And so she gave up on her dream of graduating from Birmingham-Southern, one she had had since childhood, because she believed in something bigger.

“She believed in promoting the dignity of each person, regardless of skin color, class, or background,” Marti’s brother, Spencer Turnipseed, said. “Her views just didn’t mesh with the times she was in.”

Fortunately, times changed. In 1964, BSC re-admitted Marti Turnipseed, and she received her degree in 1965. But she didn’t give up on the cause, working to partner with students at Miles College and recruiting black students to apply for admission to Birmingham-Southern (Ulysses “Skip” Bennet, BSC’s first black student, arrived her last year).

Today, in 2013, we’re celebrating how far we’ve come as a city, a state and a nation since 1963. We’ve made remarkable strides in racial equality and toward establishing the rights of all people around the world, and Birmingham should be proud of the pivotal part it has played in that global struggle.

We here at Birmingham-Southern College are so proud of Marti Turnipseed’s choice, we’ve decided to celebrate her bravery by asking our entire student body and the community as a whole to retrace her steps from BSC to downtown in a three-mile march on April 24. We want to show the world that this entire city has come together and is making the hard decisions we need to make so we can all move forward into a new and bright future.

Mayor William Bell and I will be out in front leading that march, and we hope all of Birmingham will join us. Some will not – it may be hot, and the walk is long, and our days are full of other tasks. For me, it will be an easy choice. To continue to move forward into the future, we all must decide what we will do.

Gen. Charles C. Krulak is the 13th president of Birmingham-Southern College, retired commandant of the United States Marine Corps, a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former chairman and CEO of MBNA Europe. Email: President@bsc.edu.

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